Our Bob Is An Awesome Bob!

A not entirely successful 360 view of Bob on the day before our first anniversary of ownership!

In fact, it’s about a 60 degree view of her because I couldn’t get around the sides properly to take enough pictures. Soon! To see all the pictures I took click on the 9-dot button at the bottom.

A while back I made this blog unavailable to view without a login. I’m not sure why but perhaps I felt that I wanted a little more privacy for Bob. And us. It’s going to back now. For the foreseeable future anyway.

With the site ‘locked away’ I haven’t bothered to visit it myself and the last update is from early August when I promised photos and news from our summer adventures. I’ll see if, three months on, I can summon the enthusiasm for a back-dated post soon.

In the meantime Bob is at VW Bullibarn / Superbeetles having a new ignition barrel fitted and, tomorrow, her first MOT under our ownership. I await the news with baited breath and credit card quivering. On a positive note though they said that the gearchange I’d sorted was as good as they could have done and so there was no need for any pre-winter adjustment. Cool.

I’ve SORNed her for the winter and a Just Kampers cover will be soon, postage strikes permitting, be strapped in place for the duration. There are various jobs that need doing, from working on that passenger door lock some more to making sure the rear window rubber stays in when you open the hatch to fitting a leisure battery – but winter provides time.

I’m looking forward to next year in Bob. Now we’ve got her fundamentally sorted it should just be regular maintenance and the odd problem to sort and we can enjoy driving her more than we were able to during much of 2009.

Home! In the past week Bob’s done over 1000 miles (inc 350 today over 10 hours) and hasn’t missed a beat. What a girl!

I’ll post all the details of Stonehenge & Devon next weekend when we’re back from holiday part II in Suffolk.

A weekend of maintenance on Bob saw us (as in Dad assisted by H & I) get loads of jobs done both in readiness for camping and because they really needed to be done.

In no particular order we:

• Checked the front brakes – all good.
• Connected the pipes on the water tank properly so they don’t leak.
• Worked out why the water pump wasn’t working (and identified that it will probably need a return valve).
• Made sure that the oil was OK and at the right level.
• Tested the fridge to make sure it works on gas – it does!
• Put draft excluder on the louvre windows to stop it blowing a gale through the back.
• Did a temporary fix on the clunking wiper arms that stopped the clunking and will keep them going until a permanent solution in the autumn.
• Fixed down the kick plate properly.
• Put together a small spares kit to carry around and checked that the jack worked.
• Did a few small bodywork repairs.
• Gave the windows a proper clean.
• Stopped the rear hatch from rattling.
• Re-aligned the passenger-side door after last month’s fence post accident.
• Made it possible to shut the engine bay lid without having to bang it to with your fist.

In addition to all that we sorted out various electrical issues. The electric windscreen washers have never worked. We were told when we bought Bob that it just needed some water in it, but we filled it up and it still didn’t work. When we pulled back the panel to look this is what we found – a mass of wires and a washer motor hanging loose behind the front panel. The motor was broken. It was simply too old and weak to pump the water up to the washer jets. We went and bought a replacement and fitted it on a hand-made bracket to stop it rattling around.

The wiring was something else. To the left  is a picture of the washer switch, which as you can see had been wired in using speaker cable. Not wanting to leave the dashboard wiring in such a state we went about rewiring various sections and re-routing wires which seem to have been put in without any thought to keeping things manageable and/or tidy. Behind the fuse box we found two still- live wires that had simply been cut off and left untaped and potentially dangerous.

To add to the wiring woes, we found that one of the inside strip lights was overheating and burning its circuits when you switched it on. Thankfully we never used the light, although if we had I hope the amount of smoke it gave off would have alerted us to the danger.

In all, we removed a substantial number of wires that were either dangerous, too long, incorrect or, as was the case a number of times, simply not needed anymore as the components that they had once served had been removed and the wires left for posterity.

Since we’ve owned Bob the number of (quickly sorted) shortcuts we have found to have been made during her restoration has been alarming but accepted with light-hearted sighs, but when it involves dodgy and potential very dangerous electrics it’s difficult not to have a sense of humour bypass.

On the plus side Bob ran beautifully and barring a loss of main-beam for a stretch on the way home (a loose cable on the fuse board) gave us no problems whatsoever – a fantastic improvement over last time I drove her to Stratford way back in January.

Whilst other parents sat on wet chairs and braved the winds at Cressing Temple I sat smugly in Bob with the side door open and kept warm and dry. And when the rain stopped and the sun came out, Bob just looked cool…

Then we came home via McDonalds, eating our meal at the table in the back of Bob. Fast food has never been such a chilled experience!

All booked up for our first camping expeditions in Bob! Very exciting!

Last weekend we again camped on H‘s dad’s front drive. We’re building up to a camp site slowly!

Also there were H‘s sister’s family and their T4 Caravelle which they use to travel across Europe (England > Spain > Romania > Hungary > England) during June and July. They very cleverly filled the area behind the second row of seats with custom made boxes as part of a false floor so that, if needed, all four of them could sleep in it. Puts the small trips we’ve made in Bob so far into perspective!

But yesterday we went to Southwold in her and we’ll soon be off camping in Devon and in Norfolk. To celebrate our excitement at this I’ve added a new page called Our Travels upon which I shall record all the places we have visited in Bob. In its own way it’s all very exciting!

With summer here (and the school holidays upon us) plans are afoot for using Bob as much as possible. The battery problems have been sorted by the fitment of a new battery which so far, touch wood, is proving to be trouble free.

As a result we’ve started using Bob rather than the Citroen or Rover. Yesterday it was to take A to archery, today it was raspberry picking.

We’ve got two camping trips lined up – to Devon and Norfolk – and because we didn’t sort out the ferry tickets in time France will be happening later. Before that we’re taking Bob to Dad’s for a once-over service, to fix the leaking washer bottle & realign the passenger door in readiness for campsite activity.

My bought Bob to use for camping and hopefully we’ll have a few (good!) stories to tell come the end of the hols…

Before I write this I must say how odd it is that after being almost obsessive about taking pictures over the past six months I completely forgot to this past weekend. So this post is all about our momentous first sleep in Bob and I’ve no photos to mark the occasion. Oops. This doesn’t detract from the weekend of course which was glorious in terms of Bob, the weather and Morris Weekend, I just wish etc. etc.

On Saturday morning H filled Bob with all of he things we’ve not really had the opportunity to fill her with before – pots, pans, sleeping kit etc. and we set about trying to sterilise the water tank. A daisy chain of hose pipes lent to us by (and using the outside tap of) Brenda next door flushed out the tank before we filled it up, popped in the sterilising tablets for an hour, and then re-filled it. There are certain leakage issues in the piping between the filler cap behind the passenger seat and the tank itself but otherwise all was fine.

Packed up with our stuff, including ice blocks and milk in the fridge, we set off and we had our first (of two) accidents over the course of the weekend. As I reversed out of the back garden the back wheels dropped off the curb and it was at that moment I realised the passenger side door wasn’t fully clicked to. It was only a slow, gentle drop but it was enough to pull the door open enough for it to wedge on the annoyingly placed fence and, I believe, bend the hinges slightly. Whatever, the door now catches on the frame so we shut the door, locked it, and H used the sliding side door for the rest of the weekend. If the door had swung open at any other point but there… It’s an avoidable job that will need doing, and probably won’t be cheap either.

Annoyed but still upbeat we set off for Thaxted. A stop at the local garage showed that the tyres had lost no pressure at all in the past fortnight, which was good. I had noticed that the throttle response seemed poor though and guessed that, as before, it was the pin that holds the throttle pedal up that had fallen out. A second stop in a lay-by and that was sorted, although only by sliding the pin back in – it’ll need a permanent fix soon. We set-off again and as we went around the first bend the fridge door flew open and the entire contents were thrown across the van floor. A third stop saw the power pack & crook lock wedged against the door as the fridge clip seems to be broken. Happily, there were no more stops ’til Thaxted.

Arriving at H‘s Dad’s house we found that Anne had put a ‘Reserved for Bob’ sign on the drive for us which was a nice touch. We parked up and went in doors to watch the FA Cup Final. We then went out to see the Morris Dancing. H‘s Dad has danced with Thaxted Morris Men for years and so we always try to go to the annual Ring Meeting where Morris Men from all over the UK ( and sometimes the world) come together in Thaxted to dance. It being the 75th Thaxted Ring Meeting there were many more Morris Men than usual.

Although I forgot to take a picture of Bob parked up and curtains drawn I did take some pictures of the dancing. They were taken on my mobile in poor light into the sun but they’re something! The picture on the right is of  Thaxted Morris Men in flight.

One of the things that happened again and again during the weekend was people wanting to talk about Bob and share their experiences with VW Campers. Almost universally their flaws are discussed openly and critically, but it’s in a jovial and fond way. I wonder how many other vehicles would illicit such a response.

After the first lot of dancing we headed back home for some excellent food before going back out for the evening session. The Abbots Bromley Horn Dance as danced by Thaxted Morris Men is amazing. Sadly it was on very late due to the large number of Morris Men dancing and H‘s legs couldn’t cope with more standing. We retired to Bob having missed the Horn Dance – an excellent excuse should one be needed to see it at the Patronal Festival later in the  month.

Our first night in Bob was…cosy. After A had informed us it had been really cold we took our thick sleeping bag. Going to bed in a couple of t-shirts and pyjama bottoms I was soon down to my boxers (sorry for the image!) and poor H was in the closed side of the sleeping bag and so cooked. There was also little escape either for her from my snoring. I have decided that Campers are designed for people of 50 years mechanical experience with the body dimensions and suppleness of a 10 year old! It was lovely camping out in her though, and a breakfast of Earl Grey/sterilising tablet tea and chocolate biscuits whilst sat on the bed was bliss!

We’d been invited over to a friend’s house on Sunday morning. We went round for a cuppa and ended up staying for a barbecue lunch. It was a wonderfully relaxing morning and it was perhaps this that led to our second accident of the weekend. The house has a very big, ‘lawned’  garden and the children present (six under the age of seven) had been given rides around the garden in a flat bed truck that was there to help move some furniture. When we eventually left in Bob the atmosphere of relaxed fun caused a rush of blood to the head and me deciding to play up to the crowd. So I didn’t turn Bob around out the front, I drove her around the back to do it. This went down very well until I misjudged the gap between the hedge and the swings and bent one of the seeing posts. I have apologised profusely and been generously forgiven. I shall now move on…

Sunday afternoon was spent in Margaret Gardens watching more dancing and doing a bit of country dancing ourselves. It was a bit too hot sat there, but we’d have been glad of it in the evening  as the wind picked up, the sun went down and our thinned blood demanded blanket around shoulders.

We headed home just as Bob’s lights were needed and were soon in bed sleeping/snoring. The weekend has given us a list of jobs to do (passenger door alignment, throttle pedal pin, fridge door catch etc.) and a taste of what it is to camp out in Bob. It may only have been on a front driveway but it was a start – the first night of many.

One day shy of six months after Bob arrived and she’s finally being used as nature intended. A & his friend G are out in the back garden having a sleep-over. H & I shall be trying it out on Saturday and you never know – we might even go to a campsite one day!